Bravely Built

Here’s something you may or may not know about me. I like challenges. I like to try new things to see if I can do them or not. This is a good example of that.

We were offered a baby bunny and I needed a home for him before we could get him. I really wanted a bunny! So I looked online, found a plan, bought wood and went to work. That sounds pretty basic but the thing is – I haven’t built anything even remotely like this ever. Or really built anything since shop class in high school when one of the guys finished my project for me. But we had the tools I needed and there were step-by-step instructions, so…why not?

Here’s how it went…

Supposedly, these stacks of wood and hardware cloth are going to turn into a fabulous bunny hutch.

Hardware cloth. The bane of my existence. I hate working with it. Anyway, here it is being placed on the base of the cage area.

Here are the walls. There’s an enclosed area that’s is accessed by the little hole there. It almost looks like I know what I’m doing, doesn’t it?

Hey, look, we almost have an actual structure here! It’s laying on the front face of the cage.

And here we have a roof! No drenched bunnies for us!

Time to build the big front door panel. More hardware cloth. Ugh!!

Nice and secure from…whatever might want to eat our bunny, I guess. He has a lovely screened-in porch, don’t you think?

It opens, indeed it does. And look! A door has magically appeared on the other side, too!

Here’s a shot from the side. Nicely sloped so the rain will run off to the back. It’s the real deal, kids!

Next we (I had a little help here from the kids) put on some water-resistant stain. Lesson learned here: stain the boards before assembling them. That would have been SO much easier and the completed project would have looked better.

That seems a little short, doesn’t it? I don’t want to actually have to bend over and get anything that might be construed as exercise just to take care of the bunny. That’s crazy talk. So…it’s time to add some legs. Really, really tall legs.

I guess you can’t see how long the legs are here. Take my word for it. The top of the hutch is about 6 feet tall. And here’s a shot of it with the doors open because I haven’t posted enough pictures of it yet.

And that concludes the excitement that is my first big woodworking project. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Next post, I’ll introduce you to our little tenant.